An unofficial AU advocate at large, Jason never misses a chance to recount the merits of an Athabasca education. Jason’s studies began alone in front of a rustic rural fireplace in December of 2003 and carried on through various brick and mortar college classrooms yet always with Athabasca as part of his journey. In 2014 he completed his BA in Sociology and in 2022 graduated with an MA in Cultural Studies. To this end, his columns seek to explore edifying moments of learning how to learn within the challenging ideological terrain of that great bugaboo facing students everywhere: the real world!
For many of us, long before we were students at AU, our very first professor was our Mother! For others, mother figures have appeared in different forms, but each of us began life with at least one crucial caregiver. Mother’s Day is a chance to show gratitude to the women who raised us and the… Read more »
Technical glitches have a fateful feel to them: it’s like Murphy’s Law (where anything that can go wrong will go wrong) meets the original Jurassic Park (where a chaos principle ensures that a teensy bugaboo leads to an infinite regress of larger and larger foul-ups). So it was that when AU last month conducted an… Read more »
Yip, yip, YOWL! In golf, trying too many practice putts can induce a case of the yips where a player will yelp in frustration as their motor skills cease to co-operate with the brain’s signals to engage in a gentle, repetitive, swinging motion. Like a dog whose paw has momentarily been trod on, the howl… Read more »
Politicians are a bit like polliwogs: they hatch in all sorts of marshes, bogs and, er, swamp settings. Each would-be orator emerges as a frog and ribbits to anyone who’ll listen, creating a popularity contest where the loudest and brashest croaker wins. As students, we become political through our studies; by definition, our essays demand… Read more »
If you dissect a duck, where do you find its quack? What a query, why even ask that? Nevertheless, the bit about the duck and its quack arose somewhere amidst the fascinating weeds of the AU course The Business of Emotions. Years later, that line surfaces now and then when I ponder matters epistemic: how… Read more »
The sound of galloping horse hooves implies action and adventure. The notion of riding off into the sunset of one’s destiny provides a frame through which we can view any task. As we climb atop the noble steed of our academic studies, we might reflect on the twin value of fun and function that guide… Read more »
Being swept away by meaningful yet ineffable moments of joy, desolation, or brilliance is a powerful part of being human. As students, such magical life mysteries extend to the realm of reading, where words on a page morph into ideas and imagery that whisk us away to realms unimaginable. When we find an academic discipline… Read more »
There’s no better time to deploy our AU critical thinking skills than when public opinion seems to be kneaded into a consensus by the media. After all, if education can’t teach us to see a broad picture of current events, then we might as well just go around wearing a T-Shirt that reads: “I have… Read more »
20-years-ago, on March 20th 2003, American and British troops invaded Iraq to remove a tyrant who had used chemical weapons against his own people. This ruling despot, Saddam Hussein, had received the South Park cartoon caricature treatment so we all knew he was a baaaad man. Authorities and experts (spoiler alert: beware expert consensus!) claimed… Read more »
Emergent within our adult lives are many facets to be proud of: kids, families, careers, car payments, mortgages. Yet, where there’s responsibility there’s also the potential for stress and strain and the pressing need to, as the saying goes, put on our big boy undies or big girl panties. Some realities of growing up apply… Read more »